Switch is a South Africa-based fintech infrastructure that specializes in open finance and payments solutions. Vodacom, on the other hand, is another leading telecommunications company in South Africa. The telecom operates as a subsidiary of Vodafone Group and Vodacom Financial Services.
The Vodacom Financial Service has signed a partnership deal with Switch to improve Vodapay Wallet's financial offerings in South Africa. The VodaPay Wallet is a digital wallet and mobile payment platform developed by Vodacom Financial Services.
The payment wallet is designed to simplify payments and provide users with a comprehensive financial ecosystem within a single mobile app which is downloadable on the Google Play Store and Apple App store. The wallet operates as part of the VodaPay Super App, a feature-rich platform offering a range of financial and lifestyle services in South Africa.
Here's how the partnership works:
- Stitch’s technology will be used to activate quicker, efficient and more secure payment processing within the VodaPay Wallet. With this, merchants and consumers will be able to perform features like direct debit orders, instant EFT payments, and automated reconciliations on the payment app.
- Furthermore, Vodapay will leverage Stitch’s open finance platform to automatically integrate and connect with diverse of financial institutions and third-party service providers within Stitch's Infrastructure. In essnece, Vodapay users will have the ability to access more financial services--such as microloans, saving, investments and insurance products--directly within the wallet.
- The partnership focuses on reducing friction for customers by offering intuitive onboarding, simplified payments, and robust security measures. These improvements are expected to drive user adoption and retention in the country.
- More so, businesses and merchants using VodaPay will be able to integrate with Stitch’s scalable API solutions. The Stitch's API will allow them to manage transactions more efficiently and grow their operations with minimal technical overhead.
- The partnership is also aimed at providing a faster, efficient and more convenient way for users to top up their VodaPay wallets. A new payment feature has been added to the platform through the partnership. The new feature allows instant wallet top-ups directly from bank accounts. So, users no longer need to visit stores or kiosks to add funds to their wallets.
Zweli Zulu, Product and Payments Lead at VodaPay, spoke highly of Stitch’s work in their partnership. He said the "experience had been amazing". He praises Stitch for their speed, secure systems, and dedication to adding real value to their service.
Zweli also cited that Stitch goes beyond just integrating their infrastructure with them. He said they also send their engineers to work directly with the sir team to make sure everything run smoothly and as expected.
This teamwork shows how both companies are serious about using their existing technologies to make life better and include more people in the digital world.
